Two Landscapes

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These poems were included in the 02024 edition of Pace Layers, Long Now's Annual Journal of the best of long-term thinking.

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Landscape With Oil Rig

After Platform Gilda in Santa Barbara County, California

hurtling into
absolute

down   puncture    hiss
anechoic carbonation

throat releases the compression
of every shadow-creature

with a subcutaneous injection
chrome white-knuckles into thermal ventilation

the mountain’s installation
scaffolding from the center of the sea

under a hum of triangulated drones
tides slice muted sheets of obsidian

under a substitute for the cosmos
rusted membranes spatter natal foam

an orchestra of polyps uploads their calcium
into the slow-rise of titanic extraction


Landscape With Spilled Diesel

After Richard Wilson’s 20:50 (1987)

loosened    tongue
plink

palpitations of potential energy
slick

segmented steel with pluvial opalescence
liquid void renders surfaces smooth and suffocated

pyrogeny blotches every open mouth
with irradiated particulate pupation

a prelude to the muscular collapse
of hides squirming amongst fluid persistence

cowpunch conceals into the sucked pockets of cheeks
vapors settle into the vacancy of freshly scrubbed nostrils

puckered raw by the wet flavor of chaos
intestinal unrest throws the body out of itself

pools of metallic pollen flint-strike into curled eyelids
marking the futility of decontamination protocols

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